I Fell in Love with Hope(92)

He kisses my head and talks to me, drawing his sentences out, using more words than he has to, because he knows his voice calms me.

I ask Sam if he feels trapped by his body as Henry feels trapped in his.

Sam asks why I would think that. I tell him that he’s sick. He says you don’t have to be sick to feel stuck. I ask again if that’s how he feels. Sam says trapped isn’t the right word. He says he feels grounded because his mind can go anywhere it wants, but his body always brings him home.

He plays with my hair as I trace the healthy skin around the mounds of rawness.

He asks me if I’m okay.

I say I wish I could listen more without understanding less.

—

Henry dies a few days later.

We’re in the middle of a card game when a wave of tiresome hits him. Sam asks if he’s feeling alright and if he wants some water. Henry says he just needs a moment, a little nap before the next game. But when Sam and I leave the room, his heart stops beating. He tries to draw breath but can’t.

Nurses flood the room, Ella at the head. She flattens his cot, hurried codes and orders flying back and forth. Their loud, brutal efficiency is overshadowed by Henry’s gasping.

Sam tries to pull me out of the room.

“Wait,” I plead. Henry opens his eyes, turning his head on the pillow, a single arm reaching past his pipe. He tries to speak, no air to create words left in his throat. Then, his body goes limp. His eyes glaze over till nothing–no one–exists behind them.

“Wait–”

“You don’t have to see this,” Sam whispers, pushing me down the hall. There isn’t time to calm me down, so he opens the door to the old supply closet and leads me in.

“He was doing so much better,” I whisper, walking backward, trying not to replay the scene in my head.

“I know. I know, it’s not fair,” Sam says, hugging me tight, but I know he’s crying too. “It’ll be okay. It’ll be fine.” His breath huffs as he speaks, the heat blowing on my hair, his voice muffled. “It’ll be okay. Don’t lose hope.”

“He was so strong,” I say. “Why did he die?”

“I don’t know,” Sam whispers. “I don’t know, my love.”

“He just wanted to be with his friend.”

“What?”

“Henry,” I say, my chest all tight. “When he lost his leg in the war, his friend died next to him. He cried. He screamed. He just wanted to be with him.”

“He told you that?”

“No.” I shake my head, and the blood of that day may as well be spilled on the floor. I can smell it, feel it. “No, I saw it.”

“My love, Henry lost his leg over sixty years ago,” Sam says. “You wouldn’t have been born yet.”

My existence is difficult to phrase and even harder to explain. No one has ever questioned it. No one has ever wondered. As such, when Sam’s confused gaze meets mine, I’m not sure how to say it.

“I–” I swallow. “I am not like the other broken things you know.”

Sam’s arms fall slowly, his hands settling on my wrists, the scar he bears brushing against my skin. He frowns, confused.

“I don’t understand.”

“This place,” I say, “This is where I belong. This is who I am.” I bring my hands up to Sam’s face, tracing the curvature, the way it’s changed yet stayed the same in so many ways.

“I was so lonely,” I say like I’m apologizing. “I wanted to know why the people I’m meant to protect always slip through my fingers.” I want to cry. I want to cry and bring Henry and his friend both back. I want them to hug like Sam, and I hug and smoke their pipes and live together in that little cabin by the river.

I stutter over a sob. “Why do people have to die?”

Sam doesn’t know what to say. He’s always been full of teachings ever since he was little, but this has always been my one search for a reason despite the fact that I condemn it.

And Sam has no answer.

He bites down, and a frustrated noise spit between his teeth. He holds onto my wrists, his forehead against mine.

“We can leave,” he says, a little whisper behind it.

I blink. “What?”

“We can get away from all this,” he says. “All this sadness and death. We can get away from this place so barren of story and adventure.”

“Sam–”

“We’ll take vials of my medicine. I’ll be careful. I can get a job. I’ll take care of us,” he whispers, urgency in his voice like he’s ready to run and pull me with him like we’re just children in a park. “We can go see the world, my love. We can experience all the things we never got to feel. We can finally be free and watch the sunrise without glass in the way.”

Everything is moving so fast. Sam’s grip is iron. His words are fluid, drowning me. I feel like air stuck underwater.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“Yes, you can,” Sam says. “I know it’s scary, but we’ll have each other and–”

“I can’t leave, Sam.” I slide out of his hold, walking backward till we’re disconnected. “Not forever,” I say, dragging my sleeve across my mouth as if my words could take up less space if I muffled them. “Not like you want me to.”